View Message

[Facts] Pronunciation of Spanish singer Ailyn's name
There is a singer from Spain (born Pilar Giménez García) who goes by the name of Ailyn. She evidently is becoming famous all over Europe because a Norwegian gothic metal rock band called Sirenia has chosen her as their new female singer. How does she pronounce Ailyn? Is it like the Irish Eileen (eye-LEEN), or is it more like EYE-lin, or is it something else? Hispanics in the USA seem to mostly pronunce Ailin and Ailyn as Eileen, so I am checking to see if the same pronunciation is used in Spain. :)
vote up1vote down

Replies

I don't know how she is pronouncing her stage name but I suspect that she and the mass media in Spain are just pronouncing it eye-LEEN. Ailyn is a misspelling* of Ailín, a Mapuche name, and since Ailín (and Ailyn) came recently to Spain from, mainly, Argentina and Chile, the pronunciation is still the original one -the name is very young among the Spanish names (not before '80s)-.*In Spanish, excepted the copulative conjunction y (and), a letter Y only can be a consonant (Yolanda, yogur) or a semiconsonant (rey), not a vowel. The use of Y as vowel is considered a misspelling.
vote up1vote down
Thank you! What is the Mapuche origin of the name? I do wonder if the Irish name Eileen also affected this in Chile, since I know there certainly were Irish settlers in Chile, because of their independence leader Bernardo O'Higgins. :)http://www.nndb.com/people/922/000092646/

This message was edited 5/27/2008, 9:14 AM

vote up1vote down
The Mapuches are one of the native cultures of Chile and Argentina; they were called Araucans, too. In their language, Ailín (also spelled Aylín in some sources) means "very clear, transparent".Because of the similarity, some people have mixed up Ailín with two other Mapuche names. The first one is Ailén (with the variants Aillén and Aylén), coming from the Mapuche word ailliñ, "ember, red-hot coal", and some people interpret it as "little ember" and other people as "burning ember".The second one is Ayelén, which in Mapuche means "happy, glad".The three names are right now popular in Argentina because of its use in soap operas and sitcoms and the revival of native first names.In this case, the English Eileen, adaptation of the Irish Eibhlín, has nothing to do with the Mapuche Ailín.
vote up1vote down
Thank you again
vote up1vote down